SteadyEDGE™ is a patented base solution, which offers food, home, and personal care producers enhanced brand differentiation options together with more production efficiency.
The use of PET is steadily gaining market share in food, home, and personal care markets traditionally dominated by high density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP). In 2016, PET packages accounted for 29 billion units for food, 7 billion units for personal care, and 8 billion units for home care. These figures are expected to grow by an average of 3% for all three sectors until 2020. Within these highly competitive markets, Sidel's new SteadyEDGE base offers chances to accelerate the take-up of PET containers. Along with innovative and attractive PET package design variants it ensures stable and cost-efficient production.
Creative and distinctive package
The new base technology is designed to meet the challenge of producing flat, oval, and rectangular containers in PET, which all require a specific production process that delivers the optimum material distribution of the material to achieve a top-quality package.
“It makes it possible to achieve premium-quality containers in PET, with sharper edges, which have a radius as little as only 1 mm., compared to a previous minimum of 2.5 mm,” says Pierrick Protais, Packaging Innovation Leader at Sidel.
These sharper edges increase design freedom and facilitate the production of more elegant containers with bases which are less curved, according to the company. They open up particular marketing opportunities for containers with complex shapes and large labelling surfaces. The technology also ensures maximum container quality by way of accurate processing, optionally reinforced by a monitoring system of visual control of base movement on individual blowing stations.
More stable package for optimum uptime
The sharper edges possible on the package are used to effectively flatten and increase the 'standing ring' area of the base.
“In this way, the package is much more stable, preventing unwanted rocking and reducing the possibility of containers being knocked over," Protais says. "The application of SteadyEDGE to any design can enhance the package's stability by as much as 35%.”
Cost-efficient and sustainable production
This innovative packaging solution optimizes productivity and promotes low total cost of ownership (TCO), while product quality and reliability are maintained.
Benefits include light weighting possibilities of up to 10% through the improved material stretch on the base. A reduction in blowing pressure decreases energy consumption by up to 20% during production when limitation is linked to base design. The solution has been achieving higher output rates, which are also up to 10% faster—from 1,800 bottles per hour per mold for flat containers with a standard base to 2,000 bottles per hour per mold with SteadyEDGE.
Smarter blowing and quick changeover
The specific sharp base design is achieved using the new Sidel patented base mold system: The Base OverStroke System (BOSS). BOSS is a piston activated in the blowing phase to stroke the base. This mechanical element allows for the raising and lowering of the base during the bottle-forming process independent of the opening and closing of the two half-shells of the mold.
BOSS provides flexible and versatile production with the option to implement quick mold changeovers and ensure maximum production uptime. A BOSS-to-BOSS changeover can be performed in just three minutes; BOSS-to-other can be performed in 11 minutes. Easy to implement and to retrofit, Sidel's new BOSS solution is fully compatible with Sidel Universal blowing machines.
